There are a couple solid strategies to consider while choosing an effective domain name for a new website.  Many times the choice will depend on the company, the target market, and the ultimate goal for the site.  Here are some key factors to consider while making the choice.

Pick a domain name that contains your company name.

This is what the majority of corporate domain buyers will do because it builds up their company name and is easy to associate with the actual physical company.  Although most common, this is not always the best idea.  Here are a couple reasons why it is not:

1. The company name by itself doesn’t always adequately describe the business. For example, Jim starts a car washing company in San Francisco, CA named Jim’s Washers.  He buys the domain name jimswashers.com.  Unless he has very strong content through search engine optimization, he will likely lose search traffic to his competitor who has registered sanfrancisco-carwash.com.  His competitor has a domain name that is localized and descriptive of the service offered.  What are Jim’s Washers washing?
2. The company name isn’t unique enough from other competition. Many companies share the same or similar names across the US.  If a family opens a diner named Mom & Pop’s Diner, they aren’t going to have great results with the domain momandpopsdiner.com.  It doesn’t set them apart from others by the same name.

Pick a domain name that uses keywords about your business.

We discussed this above with Jim’s Washers.  Using locational and specific words that describe or define a business can be very powerful with search engines.  The one downfall can be the difficulty in building a brand on a set of keywords.  For example, Jessica starts a high-end Italian food restaurant in Pleasanton, CA.  By simply using pleasanton-italian-food.com, she will be entirely missing out on setting herself apart from fast food Italian as well as building her corporate brand name on the web.  What will happen when Jessica expands her business outside of Pleasanton?

Pick a domain name that is entirely unique.

This option is not always feasible for everyone because it relates to the actual naming of the company.  One great way to stand apart is to create a word as a company name.  Companies like Google, Facebook, and EBay have all created words that before their existence really didn’t mean much of anything.  By creating these words, the search engine competition on that term (or phrase) is close to zero making it easy to dominate.

When it comes down to registering a domain name, spend the extra time and effort on brainstorming.  An effectively constructed domain name could mean the difference in thousands of free referrals from search engines and a huge impact on sales.